Hillary Clinton’s “automatic voter registration” plan is illegal and would trample the states’ control of the voting process, as outlined in the Constitution.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting Clinton endorses automatic registration of people when they turn 18, letting felons vote and a maximum 30-minute waiting period to vote.

A federal takeover of election laws—and rolling back state voter-ID laws intended to discourage election fraud—is a high priority for progressives. The billionaire financier George Soros reportedly has pledged $5 million to bankroll legal challenges to laws like those that Mrs. Clinton decries. Part of the effort is intended simply to galvanize the Democratic base by stoking a sense of grievance, but the strategy should be taken seriously—and rebutted as unconstitutional.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate federal elections, not state ones. It also distinguishes between the regulation of presidential versus congressional elections. Specifically, under Article I, Section 4—the Elections Clause—while the states have primary responsibility for regulating congressional elections, Congress can pre-empt their rules by regulating “times, places and manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,” except that Congress cannot regulate the “places of chusing [sic] Senators.”

For presidential elections, the Constitution restricts Congress’s power and grants states an even more robust role—which is why the president is elected by the votes of the state-driven Electoral College, rather than directly by the people. Accordingly, Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution permits congressional regulation only of “the time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes.”